Since I had bought my radio 2 years ago, I hoped that someday, I'd be able to play videos on the damn thing and now that that day has arrived, I've been having a bitch of a time finding the right settings that would play back...after much experimentation, I thought I'd share my findings and (hopefully) get a couple of suggestions for a better encode...

So if you want movies for your device, grab your movie files and run them through Handbrake (free for both Mac and PC) and select the "iPhone Legacy" preset...this preset sets the resolution to the very same native res of our device (480 x 272) and maintain aspect ratio should already be checked.

Tab over to "Video" and select MPEG-4 as the video codec and set the average bitrate to 500...go then to the audio settings and set the mixdown to stereo and the sample rate to 48 and the bitrate to 128. Hit start at the top and when done you should have a playable file in TCPMP.

It would be nice to be able to do it in H264 but everytime I've tried that, it runs as a pixelated mess and will frequently drop frames but if you have a preset that works with 264, please share it as I'd like to try it.

I was able to keep original Bitrate of the video (usually my original movie files are 900-1000 bitrate) and running smoothly with all of your settings. Which audio encoding u suggest?

I found that there wasn't much speed difference between using DirectDraw/buffer/GDI

I am also using a class 10 SDHC, so not sure if that is a factor as well

having some minor issues with audio ranges - but maybe i have to tweek settings more

Audio encode settings? Just what I listed above...AAC, 128Kb @ 48Hz in stereo. The head unit will only play sound from the front two speakers and they are merged into mono so it will never sound "great". It is what it is...I'll have to try to up the bitrate but I'm quite happy at 500kbits and it helps to keep my files relatively small (around 500mbs). By the way, I'm using a class 2 micro SD so that might be part of the problem I was experiencing before.

Have you tried the "Spider Pig" file included with MioPocket? It runs great and was encoded with h264 but I can't seem to match that output. :/

well, the h264 grainy encoding might just be a feature of just Handbrake - mebe try different software?

yeah, SpiderPig runs just fine

well, the h264 grainy encoding might just be a feature of just Handbrake - mebe try different software?

yeah, SpiderPig runs just fine

No it doesn't come out grainy but it plays back with lots of stuttering...totally unwatchable. I've tried a few others encoders but I'm quite content with my files as they stand now...H264 would be nice just so that I can shrink them further so if you find a working combo, please post it.